DS is 6, nearly 7, and has finished one year of school (we're not in the UK). I'm a bit concerned about how he's progressing with his reading. In the end of year assessment he achieved the standard that 90% of children are expected to reach, so not in the bottom 10% but not better than that.
He's bilingual, which might make some difference, but the local language is his dominant language and obviously what he has been learning to read. It's a very phonetic language, very simple with few exceptions, so it should be one of the easier languages for learning to read. Of course children start a little later in school here (the year they turn 6) and we did not really push him with literacy skills before he started, but they usually progress quite quickly because they are that much older.
He always does his home reading 5x a week as the school asks but it is heavy going. He reads very slowly with no expression and because it takes him so long to get to the end of a sentence he often doesn't have a good sense of the meaning by the time he has read it. He can see the same word written twice in a row or twice in quick succession and the second time reading it is just as much of a struggle as the first time. He frequently muddles up b and d and many vowels.
He still writes in a mixture of upper case and lower case. Many letters and numerals he still forms backwards. He sometimes doesn't even spell his own name correctly (misses out a letter).
He dislikes reading and writing and will never choose to do it of his own accord. It seems to exhaust him. He will sometimes pick up a book to look at the pictures.
He does however love listening to stories and has excellent comprehension of both his languages. We read to him daily.
Does this sound concerning or is it too soon to tell anything since he's only been in school a year?